You may have heard: There will be a hearing in the U.S. Senate about the ES&S monopolistic takeover of America's voting system. (ES&S bought Diebold's Premier Election Solutions, giving it control over 75% of our jurisdictions).

Here is a copy of the letter BLACK BOX VOTING has sent to every senator on the committee, and a downloadable do-it-yourself letter in Word format so you can edit and customize to your own liking and send your own, plus all the addresses, fax numbers and phone numbers.

Note that the letter provides some new research to counteract claims that it's too late because the acquisition has already taken place, and that the acquisition doesn't fall under antitrust laws.

We encourage you to take an hour or so and start making contacts to help block the takeover!

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We have learned to send by fax AND snail mail. Please consider this approach, with perhaps phone calls also if you have time, and please pass this along and recommend that others make contacts as well.

I have added a link to the Associated Press story on this article down at the end so you can see the announcement. The hearing will be by the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

AND NOW FOR A FEW CAUTIONARY NOTES

1) It is the US Dept. of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission that have enforcement jurisdiction over antitrust matters. The Senate action may or not be effective. We need to be careful that the hearing heads the remedies in the right direction. Suggested remedies, based on past antitrust remedies by enforcement agencies, are provided in the do-it-yourself letter. We framed the letter to head off possible unintended consequences of a senate hearing on this matter -- specifically, we don't want them using this as an excuse to further expand EAC powers.

2) Some of the people on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee don't give us a lot of confidence:

- Both sponsors of the e-voting force-feed Help America Vote legislation (HAVA) are on the committee: Chris Dodd and Mitch McConnell.

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- Head of the committee Charles Schumer currently has a proposed bill to force Internet voter registration into all 50 states.

- Dianne Feinstein has participated in some of the most horrific voting technology legislative proposals. And the list goes on.

For this reason, Black Box Voting has framed the letter into the CRUCIAL "rights" approach.